Mark Weisman left Iowa's debacle with Northwestern early on Saturday after sustaining a leg injury. He entered the game just two weeks removed from a sprained ankle suffered late in the game against Michigan State, but the new injury was unrelated to that pre-existing ankle injury. Unfortunately, it sounds like that new injury is going to keep Weisman from playing against Indiana on Saturday.
Ferentz: We don't expect Mark [Weisman] to play. Good news is got Damon Bullock back after six weeks. Started slow but competed hard.
— Rittenberg/Bennett (@ESPN_BigTen) October 30, 2012
Per our own PSD, Weisman's suffering from a groin injury. It's hard to say when we might come back, although the Iowa offense could certainly use a speedy return from him, given the meager results we've seen in his absence (three touchdowns in two games, all of which came in garbage time after Iowa had gotten down by 20+ points).
With Weisman out, the bulk of the rushing load should fall on Damon Bullock's shoulders. Bullock has two 100-yard performances in games where he's seen a heavy workload (30 carries for 150 yards against NIU, 22 carries for 107 yards against Northwestern) and he seemed on pace for a third 100-yard game against UNI before suffering the concussion that kept him out of action for several weeks. He's a solid option for Iowa, especially against a run defense as porous as Indiana's; they're giving up 223 yards per game, good (bad?) for 112nd in the nation. (And they haven't even played Wisconsin yet.)
Backing up Bullock is true freshman Greg Garmon. Garmon has struggled in limited action this year, but a date with Indiana could be just what the doctor ordered for him. True freshman running backs for Iowa have done well against the Hoosiers in the past -- from 2008 to 2010, Iowa had a true freshman running back go over 100 yards in every Indiana game. Jordan Canzeri remains another option (on paper, at least), while Michael Malloy is probably a "break glass in case of emergency" option.
Iowa plays Indiana in Bloomington, IN at 2:30pm CT on Saturday, November 3. We'll update this story as news warrants. Also, in case you'd forgotten: AIRBHG is a total asshole.